Saturday, June 17, 2017

A new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey of rural Americans confirms several things that I have long believed to be the case: (i) rural Americans tend to be much more racist than urban residents, (ii) even though they are the largest recipients of federal safety net spending, they think those who are "other" are the ones living off the dole, and (iii) rural Americans believe "Christian values" are under attack because there are more restrictions on their ability to persecute others. Again, rural red states - especially those with white populations - receive far more federal funding that they contribute to Washington and they contribute far less to the national budget than the large cities and blue states that are the economic engines for the nation's economy. One can only assume these people get their "news" from Fox News, Breitbart, or their right wing "Christian" pastors. It would almost be funny that these people who are the largest drain per capita on the federal government think minorities are the ones playing the system if it did not disclose an insidious deep seated racism that unfortunately goes hand in hand with much of rural America and conservative Christianity. Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

The political divide
between rural and urban America is more cultural than it is economic, rooted in
rural residents’ deep misgivings about the nation’s rapidly changing
demographics, their sense that Christianity is under siege and their perception
that the federal government caters most to the needs of people in big cities,
according to a wide-ranging poll that examines cultural attitudes across the
United States.

The results highlight
the growing political divisions between rural and urban Americans. While
urban counties favored Hillary Clinton by 32 percentage points in the 2016
election, rural and small-town voters backed Trump by a 26-point margin,
significantly wider than GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s 16 points four years earlier.

But popular explanations of the rural-urban divide appear to
overstate the influence of declining economic outcomes in driving rural
America’s support for Trump. The survey responses, along with follow-up
interviews and focus groups in rural Ohio, bring into view a portrait of a
split that is tied more to social identity than to economic experience.

“Being from a rural area, everyone looks out for each other,” said Ryan
Lawson, who grew up in northern Wisconsin. “People, in my experience, in cities
are not as compassionate toward their neighbor as people in rural parts.”

In the poll, rural Americans express widespread concerns
about the lack of jobs in their communities. Two-thirds of rural residents rate
local job opportunities as fair or poor, compared with about half of urban
residents. Nearly 6 in 10 rural residents say they would encourage young people
in their community to leave for more opportunity elsewhere.

Rural areas have experienced a weak recovery from the Great Recession,
with the total number of jobs down 128,000 from pre-recession levels. Suburban
and urban counties have each gained about 3 million jobs, according to an
analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Rural Americans express far more concern about jobs in their
communities, but the poll finds that those concerns have little connection to
support for Trump, a frequent theory to explain his rise in 2016. Economic
troubles also show little relation to the feeling that urban residents have
different values.

Rural voters who lament their community’s job prospects report supporting
Trump by 14 percentage points more than Clinton, but Trump’s support was about
twice that margin — 30 points — among voters who say their community’s job
opportunities are excellent or good. Trump also earned about the same level of
support from those who say they don’t worry about paying their bills as those
who couldn’t pay their bills at some point in the past year.

Most rural residents
say they think key elements of Trump’s economic agenda would help their local
economy. Large majorities of rural residents say infrastructure investments,
better trade deals, a crackdown on undocumented immigrant workers, lower
business taxes and deregulation are “very” or “somewhat” important to boosting
jobs in their communities.

The largest fissures between Americans living in large
cities and those in less-dense areas are rooted in misgivings about the
country’s changing demographics and resentment about perceived biases in
federal assistance, according to the poll.

Rural residents are nearly three times as likely (42 percent) as
people in cities (16 percent) to say that immigrants are a burden on the
country.

The poll reveals that perceptions about abuse of government
benefits often go hand in hand with views about race.

When asked which is more common — that government help tends to go to
irresponsible people who do not deserve it or that it doesn’t reach people in
need — rural Americans are more likely than others to say they think people are
abusing the system. And across all areas, those who believe irresponsible
people get undeserved government benefits are more likely than others to think
that racial minorities receive unfair privileges.

That sense of division
is closely connected to the belief among rural Americans that Christian values
are under siege. Nearly 6 in 10 people in rural areas say Christian values are
under attack, compared with just over half of suburbanites and fewer than half
of urbanites. When personal politics is taken into account, the divide among
rural residents is even larger: 78 percent of rural Republicans say
Christian values are under attack, while 45 percent of rural Democrats do.

The other irony, of course is that it is rural America's racism and religious based bigotry that prevents new and progressive businesses from locating to their areas. Until they let go of their 1950's beliefs, they will be increasingly fall by the wayside and continue their downward social and economic death spirals. I'm sorry, but I find it hard to have sympathy for these people. With the Internet and other avenues to access truthful information, they have chosen to embrace ignorance.

I recently wrote about the disturbing phenomenon of - self-loathing? - gays voting for and otherwise supporting anti-gay politicians and political parties. True, it is an minority of the LGBT community that engages in this form of ultimately self destructive behavior, but it remains troublesome. Now, Hampton Roads Pride has stepped into this excrement by granting a vendor booth to the local "Gays for Trump" organization. They
will be present at tomorrow’s PrideFest in Town Point Park.Having anything Trump at PrideFest is
disgusting, in my view, but it gets far worse:

Joe Jervis, quoting a GAYRVA
piece notes that the group in question, "Gays for Trump, was
largely spearheaded by a 757 local, Scott Presler, who worked for the Trump
campaign under gubernatorial failure and Confederate Flag fetishist Corey
Stewart until they led a protest at the Republican National Committee
headquarters in DC prompting Trump to fire him . . . . Presler is a main
organizer for the extremist group ACT For America, which held dozens of
anti-Muslim rallies across the country last weekend. The SPLC describes ACT For
America as “the largest grassroots anti-Muslim group in the country.”

Outwire757 correctly notes that "the Trump administration, despite promising to
be a “friend of the gays” on the campaign trail, has undertaken a laundry list
of anti-LGBTQ actions, from rolling back protections for transgender students
in public schools, to removing any mention of LGBTQ from federal employment
policies, to removing sexual orientation and gender identity questions from the
2020 census, too being the first President in eight years to not proclaim June
LGBTQ Pride Month… and much much much more."

Having this group at PrideFest is an insult to those in the community who have labored long and hard to advance LGBT equality - and put up a great deal of money to sponsor Pride Fest. Obviously, some one at HR Pride failed to vette this group. Similarly, in my opinion, there needs change in direction from what I see as a too GOP friendly leadership at HR Pride that may be in part due to naivete. Having been in the GOP for the better part of a decade years ago and a City Committee member for 8 years, the party will NOT be changed from inside. Anyone who thinks otherwise is allowing themselves to be used. Sadly, the situation is part of an even large problem of some in the LGBT community actively supporting our enemies to the harm of the majority of the LGBT community and other minority groups. A lengthy piece in Slate looks at how gays are being wooed by the Al-Right and used for its purposes, not civil rights for all citizens. Here are excerpts:

At
the National Policy Institute’s 2015 conference, alt-right star Richard
Spencer’s annual Nazi-fest, aspeakernamed
Jack Donovan exhorted the crowd "to leave the world the way you entered
it, kicking and screaming and covered in somebody else’s blood." The same
year, in the pages of theThe
Occidental Observer, one of the most prominent white nationalist webzines,
another alt-righter,James J. O’Meara, held forthabout how "behind the Negro,
hidden away, as always, is the darker, more sinister figure of the Judeo. The
Negro is the shock troop. The Jew is the ultimate beneficiary.” Aside from
being open fascists and “white racialists,” Donovan and O’Meara have another
thing in common: They’re both out gay men.

In
his bookThe Homo and the Negro,
O’Meara says that gay white men represent the best of what Western culture has
to offer because of their "intelligence" and "beauty," and
that "Negroes" represent the worst, being incapable of
"achievement." Donovan calls women "whores" and
"bitches," and, when a questioner on Reddit asked him his views of
the Holocaust, responded, "What is this Holocaust thing?I’m drawing a blank."

Both have become influential figures in the alt-right;
horribly, they are not the only gay men to respond to an olive branch lately
offered by white nationalism.

In the United States, unlike in Europe, out gay men have
never been welcome in white supremacist groups. The Klan and neo-Nazi groups,
the main previous incarnations of white hate in this country, were and still
are violently anti-queer. And while a subset of openly gay men has always been
conservative (or, as in all populations, casually racist), they never sought to
join the racist right.

That was before groups like NPI, Counter-Currents Publishing,
and American Renaissance started putting out the welcome mat. Since around
2010, some (though by no means all) groups in the leadership of the white
nationalist movement have been inviting out cis gay men to speak at their
conferences, write for their magazines, and be interviewed in their journals.

And there are many more gay men (and some trans women) who
have been profoundly influenced by two white nationalist ideas: the
"threat" posed by Islam and the "danger" posed by
immigrants.

Donovan tries to sugarcoat his own racist beliefs when
speaking to his main fan base, gay men who like his macho looks and straight
men from the "pickup artist" culture andthe manospherewho are desperately trying to learn from him how to be manly.
. . . he functions as beefcake for the neofascist cause. He’s parlayed his
butch allure into a brand, earning money from a line of T-shirts and wrist
guards that say things like BARBARIAN and a series of books that seek to
instruct both straight and gay men in how to become more masculine and in
particular, more "violent."

But when Donovan says violence, he means violence. This is
not BDSM. "The ability to use violence effectively is the highest value of
masters," Donovan said in a 2017 speech at a fascist think tank in
Germany. "It is the primary value of those who create order, who create
worlds. Violence is a golden value. Violence rules. Violence is not evil–it is
elemental." . . . it's
straight-up people hurting and killing other people he's endorsing.

And what is all this violence for? Creating small,
decentralized "homelands" in this country separated by—surprise!—race.He enthusiastically
embraces an idea the alt-right calls "pan-secessionism," under which,
as Donovansays in his bookA Sky Without Eagles, "gangs"
of white men would form "autonomous zones" for themselves and white
women, where women "would not be permitted to rule or take part in …
political life." The gangs would enforce racial boundary lines, because,
as Donovan puts it, whites have "radically different values [and] cultures" than other people, and "loyalty
requires preference. It requires discrimination."

If Donovan is a caricature of the gay Nazi strongman—almost a
personification of the phrase "body fascism" (which was originally
used by gay men to critique other gay men's obsession with perfect gym
bodies)—his counterpart, James O'Meara, is an embodiment of something that
could barely be imagined until now: Nazi camp.I hesitate to write
that phrase, because it's almost painful to acknowledge that camp—that
subversive, gay "turning" of seriousness into playfulness and
straight narratives into gay ones—could be deployed by a Nazi. . . . we
no longer have the luxury of assuming that queer tropes are inherently, and
trans-historically, progressive.

Of course, neither O’Meara nor Donovan actually support gay
rights. This is partly because they don't believe in "civil rights."
Although O'Meara wants to be part of an imagined elite band of men who love
each other and rule society—his version of an Aryan fantasy called the
Männerbund—he doesn't want to support, as he put it inthe interview withAlternative Right, "some sniveling queen demanding 'my rights!' … 'The
plight of the homosexual' … is a Leftist myth." Donovan says explicitly
that straight people should be given more power and privileges than gay folks,
because their "reproductive sexuality" is superior to ours. Both men
openly detest lesbians and trans and genderqueer people. . . . .

So why are white nationalistssmiling in our
direction? Most importantly, because it worked in Europe. In Holland, France,
Germany, and Sweden, white nationalists have deliberately used LGBTQ people and
Muslims as a wedge against one another.

Bringing queer people in, in both Europe and America, is a
way to grow the neo-fascist movement. It is also a way to court millennials,
who are consistently supportive of gay rights even when they swing conservative
on other issues. It's a testament to the fact that, in some ways, the queer
movement has already won the battle for public opinion. The far right could not
beat us, so they decided to join us—in the most superficial way possible.
Ultimately, it's a form ofpinkwashing, which
YourDictionary defines as “the practice of representing something … as
gay-friendly in order to soften or downplay aspects of its reputation
considered negative.

There is another potential benefit: If white supremacists can
equate "Muslims" with attacks on LGBTQ people—and women—they might be
able to attract liberals and moderates into a kind of anti-immigrant "big
tent."

As the Washington Post and other news media outlets have reported, Der Trumpenführer let loose with a Twitter tantrum directed at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that complained as follows:

“I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man
who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt,”

Never mind that Trump himself told the world on national television that he was going to fire James Comey regardless of an advice from Mr. Rosenstein or anyone else. Sadly, it is part and parcel with Trump's constant lying that is believed only by the most brain dead of his core base of evangelical Christians and white supremacists. There's a reason why Trump now has a disapproval rate of 64% based on the latest polling. Unfortunately, as a column in the Washington Post notes, this may be the beginning of even more chaos if Trump fires Rosenstein, something that will only add to grounds for finding obstruction of justice. Trump is proving daily that his is mentally and morally unfit for office. We are rapidly approaching a 2017 version of Watergate. Here are column excerpts:

It’s come to
this, on his 146th day in office: The president, under investigation for
obstruction of justice,attackedhis
own deputy attorney general for orchestrating a “witch hunt” against him.

Sometimes my role as a columnist is to advise readers not to overreact, to
maintain perspective. Today my advice is to buckle up. Brace yourselves.

I’m not sure for what, exactly. President Trump firing Rod J. Rosenstein
or taking moves that would force the deputy attorney general, and perhaps
others, to quit? Firing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, whose probe has
pushed Trump to thisfrenzied state? Using his pardon power in an
effort to shut down the investigation, on the theory that Mueller would then have
nothing left to probe?Pardoning himself, a move of contested legality
that even Richard Nixon balked at? Facingimpeachmentproceedings,
however unlikely that may be with a Republican-controlled Congress?

That
any of these seem within the realm of possibility is the measure of how
unsettled, and unsettling, this moment is. Actually, that’s an understatement.
This situation is alarming in a way I have never experienced in almost four
decades here.

I
am not alone. “The message the president is sending through his tweets is that
he believes the rule of law doesn’t apply to him and that anyone who thinks
otherwise will be fired,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in astatement Friday.
“That’s undemocratic on its face and a blatant violation of the president’s
oath of office.”

Trump’s wounds are entirely
self-inflicted. He has seemed determined — frantic, really — to see that the
case against fired national security adviser Michael Flynn is dropped. If you
credit Comey’ssworn accountover
Trump’s news conference denials, Trump demanded Comey’s loyalty; pressed him to
drop the case against Flynn; and eventually fired Comey himself because of his
handling of “this Russia thing.” As Comey might say, no
reasonable prosecutor would fail to investigate in these circumstances.

What Trump derides as a “phony witch hunt” is the legal system working as it should.Attorney General Jeff Sessionsneeded to recuse
himself. Rosenstein needed to name a special counsel. And Mueller needs to
pursue the investigation, impartially and fearlessly, to its logical end.

That Trump now feels the need to attack seasoned prosecutors for simply
doing their jobs speaks volumes — and says nothing reassuring about the lengths
to which Trump, for whom self-preservation has always been the top priority,
might eventually go.

Again, the irony is that with ever lie and insane outburst, Trump is only adding to the momentum of the Russiagate investigation. If Trump colluded with Russia - something I would not put past him - and/or engaged in illegal money laundering schemes with Russians, he has no one to blame but himself. If he is forced from office and/or prosecuted, he will have done it to himself. Another Post article looks at this irony:

While the details aren’t precisely the same, the parallels are many. A
president under a widening investigation for (among other things) possible
obstruction of justice. A special counsel targeted by the president’s ire.
High-ranking officials in the Justice Department unwilling to put loyalty to
the president above their obligations to the country, and losing their jobs
because of it. All that’s left is the dramatic round of firings and
resignations and the headlong rush toward impeachment.

Richard Nixon didn’t have Twitter, but Donald Trump does. And this
morning, he attacked his deputy attorney general, . . . . In addition to everything
else, Trump confirms here the reports from anonymous sources that he is
the target of an obstruction of justice investigation. Glad we cleared that up.

What does this have to do with Watergate? Let’s go back to the Saturday
Night Massacre. In October 1973, Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor
investigating the Watergate scandal, demanded that President Nixon turn over
recordings of his Oval Office conversations. Nixon refused, and tried to
negotiate a deal that Cox rejected. Nixon then ordered the attorney general,
Elliot Richardson, to fire Cox. Richardson refused, and resigned. Nixon then
ordered the deputy attorney general, William Ruckelshaus, to fire Cox.
Ruckelshaus refused, and resigned. Nixon then ordered the next person in the
Justice Department hierarchy, Solicitor General Robert Bork, to fire Cox. Bork
agreed. While it would be 10 more months before Nixon himself resigned, the
Saturday Night Massacre may have been the point where his determination to
obstruct the Watergate investigation became the most clear to everyone in the
country.

We aren’t there
yet, but let’s take a good look at where we are. There is something serious
going on between Trump and Rosenstein, who is overseeing the investigation of
special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. . . . . only Rosenstein has the
authority to fire Mueller. And it’s plain that Trump would like to rid himself
of this meddlesome special counsel; the question is whether he will try.
Multiple reports from inside the White House paint a picture of Trump as
obsessed with the investigation, railing against Mueller and considering
whether to fire him — an act that everyone around Trump knows would be a
political catastrophe (and possibly a legal one as well).

If Rosenstein is
considering recusal, it’s because of his role in the Comey firing — which,
let’s not forget, Trump admitted both on national television and in aconversation
with Russian officials in the Oval Officethat he did out of unhappiness with
the Russia investigation. Rosenstein could become a witness in the obstruction
investigation, which would make it problematic for him to be overseeing
Mueller. The authority would then fall to Brand. Is Trump going to go after her
next? What happens if he orders her to fire Mueller? Would she resign in
protest like Richardson and Ruckelshaus, or follow orders like Bork?

Let’s step back and try to grasp everything that’s going on here. The
president of the United States is waging an inept public relations campaign
against the special counsel’s investigation . . .

[I]t [the Russiagate investigation] seems to
be pushing Trump to particular heights of irrationality. If you were trying to
limit the investigation and its political fallout and not antagonize the
prosecutors, it would be utterly insane to send out these kinds of tweets.
Trump’s staff and lawyers are surely begging him to stop. But they can’t
control him.

In an ordinary
scandal, you have some initial set of misdeeds, and then possibly a coverup
that adds more misdeeds that could themselves be criminal. In the Russia scandal
we could have those two sets of actions, but on top of them we have a paranoid,
infantile president seemingly determined to put himself in ever-greater
political and legal jeopardy. The more we learn about how deep Mueller’s
investigation is reaching, the higher the chances that Trump will, in a moment
of rage, order Mueller to be fired. If you think things are dramatic and absurd
right now, just wait — it’s going to get worse.

What I cannot understand is why anyone sane would have voted for Trump. His entire career and behavior for decades proved beyond question that he was unfit for office.

Two things seem to motivate Donald Trump: (i) a seemingly endless lust for money and (ii) satiating his narcissism. The two are obviously tied together since Trump apparently thinks having money erases the fact that he is an ill inform vulgarian who likes to sexually harass women. A review of Trump's business dealings in New York City underscores that he views himself above the law and that he has no reluctance about dealing with unsavory characters since as Mafia figures and Russian oligarchs/mob figures, the constant motivation being to get his hands on more money and/or prop up his business ventures. Now, as part of the Russiagate probe, Special Counsel Robert Mueller appears to be hard at work tracing the money flow of Trump, Jared Kushner and others of Trump's Russia loving minions. Money laundering is suspected and, if proven, could not only document collusion with Russia, but also be the criminal offense needed to document "high crimes" for impeachment. A column in Esquire looks at what could be a most enlightening investigation. Here are highlights:

I'd say that shit
just got real around the White House on Wednesday night, but shit
hasn't been anything but real there ever since the country determined it would
be best led for the next four to eight years by a vulgar talking yam. As
everyone who follows Preet Bharara on the electric Twitter machine—and why
don't you, by the way?—knew
was coming, the news that special counsel Robert Mueller had rolled out the railroad artillery
broke well after the close of business.Let's see if there's any solace to be found over here
with the folks at The New York Times.
Oops, no, shit's gotten pretty real there, too, via RawStory:

"A
former senior official said Mr. Mueller's investigation was looking at
money laundering by Trump associates," a source told the Times. "The
suspicion is that any cooperation with Russian officials would most
likely have been done in exchange for some kind of financial payoff, and
that there would have been an effort to hide the payoffs, most likely
by routing them through offshore banking centers." A separate
investigation into Russia has also reportedly focused on potential use
of offshore banking centers to launder money. In April, House
Intelligence Committee member Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) visited Cyprus, which "has a reputation as a laundromat for the Russians who are trying to avoid sanctions."

It
is now painfully clear that Mueller has opened the ballgame on the Trump
organization's entire business model, which always has been aromatic but which
now has become entangled with the intelligence community, the institutions of
government, and the national interest, as interpreted by Robert Mueller. He
isn't some roofing specialist that you can stiff and then drag through the
courts until he can't afford the trip any more. He isn't someone you can scare
off with your usual gang of billable-hour button men. He isn't some dingy
Russian banker who can float you a loan to tide you over. He is honest and
respected and relentless, and the only way you're going to get rid of him is to
fire him. In a way, the country is daring you to do that, just to see if you
have the stones for what comes next, and (possibly) as the last excuse it needs
to insist on a new president. Go ahead. Make our day.

For
a long time, I didn't believe that the president would bring all this down on
himself just to hide the fact that he isn't as rich as he says he is, but now
I'm less sure. I think, maybe, that's what's at the bottom of everything else.
I think he isn't that rich, so he and the family business allegedly needed
freshly laundered Russian money to keep the business—and his image—afloat.
Then, of course, the bill came due from Moscow, and that required another set
of malodorous transactions which, in turn, required that they be concealed by
another set of malodorous transactions, including the firing of James Comey,
and so on.

God,
the tax returns. If he'd only released the tax returns, and the people had
gotten a look at how he does business and how much he's really worth, it's
likely none of this happens.

In
any event, it appears that we're all going to get a crash course in the crooked
side of high finance—like we need another one of those—and in identifying all
the various fauna in the wild kingdom of the international real estate game. I
love those teachable moments. Truly, I do.

As a crisis management seemingly engulfs the White House, Vice President Mike Pence who has claimed ignorance on virtually every issue even though he headed Der Trumpenführer transition team, has reportedly now hired his own private legal counsel. To date, Pence's feigned ignorance has indicated that he either was utterly incompetent - e.g., he knew nothing of Trum BFF Mike Flynn's ties to Russia and foreign paymasters - or was lying. Given the Christofascist belief that lying is fine so long as it furthers the Christofascists' agenda, my money is on lying as opposed to incompetence and pretend ignorance. This is in complete accord with my experience of over 20 years where no one lies more often or more deceitfully that the godly right wing Christians. As Pence is lawyering up, Der Trumpenführer continues to run his big mouth and ignores the reality that he has created the majority of his own problems. Here are excerpts from the Washington Post.

A heightened
sense of unease gripped the White House on Thursday, as President Trump lashed
out at reports that he’s under scrutiny over whether he obstructed justice,
aides repeatedly deflected questions about the probe and Vice President Pence
acknowledged hiring a private lawyer to handle fallout from investigations into
Russian election meddling.

Pence’sdecision to hire Richard Cullen, a
Richmond-based lawyer who previously served as a U.S. attorney in the Eastern
District of Virginia, came less than a month after Trump hired his own private
lawyer.

The hiring of Cullen, whom an aide said Pence was paying for himself, was
made public a day afterThe Washington Post reportedthat special counsel Robert S. Mueller
III is widening his investigation to examine whether the president attempted to
obstruct justice.

A defiant Trump at multiple points Thursday expressed his frustration with
reports about that development, tweeting that he is the subject of “the single
greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history,” and one that he said is
being led by “some very bad and conflicted people.”

Trump,
who only a day earlier had called for a more civil tone in Washington after a
shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Va.,
fired off several more tweets in the afternoon voicing disbelief that he was
under scrutiny . . . .

“The legal jeopardy increases by the day,” said one informal Trump
adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss conversations with
White House aides more freely. “If you’re a White House staffer, you’re trying
to do your best to keep your head low and do your job.”

At the White House on Thursday, aides sought to portray a sense of
normalcy, staging an elaborate event to promote a Trump job-training
initiative, while simultaneously going into lockdown mode regarding Mueller’s
probe.

As Trump’s No. 2
and as head of the transition team, Pence has increasingly found himself drawn
into the widening Russia investigation.

Pence — along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Kushner, Chief of Staff
Reince Priebus and White House Counsel Donald McGahn — was one of the small
group of senior advisers the president consulted as he mulled his decision to
fire Comey, which is now a focus of Mueller’s investigation.

He also was
entangled in the events leading up to the dismissal ofMichael Flynn, Trump’s former national
security adviser, who originally [purportedly] misled Pence about his contact
with Russian officials — incorrect claims that Pence himself then repeated
publicly.

The vice president was [purportedly] kept in the dark for nearly two weeks
about Flynn’s misstatements, before learning the truth in a Post
report. Trump ultimately fired Flynn for misleading the vice
president.

There were also news reportsthat Flynn’s attorneys had alerted
Trump’s transition team, which Pence led, that Flynn was under federal
investigation for his secret ties to the Turkish government as a paid lobbyist
— a claim the White House disputes. And aides to Pence, who was running the
transition team, said the vice president was [supposedly] never informed of
Flynn’s overseas work with Turkey, either.

In the meantime,
the Republican National Committee appears to be girding for a fight.

“Talking points” sent Wednesday night to Trump allies provided a road map
for trying to undercut the significance of the latest revelation related to
possible obstruction of justice. . . . The RNC also encouraged Trump allies to
decry the “inexcusable, outrageous and illegal” leaks on which it said the
story was based and to argue that there is a double standard at work.

As noted before, Pence's claims of ignorance have about the same level of veracity as those of Sargent Schultz in the old TV show, "Hogan's Heroes" No slight intended toward sex workers, but Trump, Pence and their sycophants make the tawdriest of whores look down right virtuous. And lest it be forgotten, 81% of evangelical Christians backed the Trump/Pence ticket.

In the wake of the shooting in Alexandria, Virginia, yesterday that targeted Congressional Republicans, one once again saw the hypocrisy of politicians who have blocked any form of meaningful gun control - a hearing on lessening restrictions on gun silencers thankfully was postponed - bloviate about sending "thoughts and prayers" to the victims and their families. Thoughts and prayers do nothing to address the root problem and why gun violence in America exceeds that of any other developed country in the world. The real solution is strict gun control and a weapons surrender program as occurred in Australia in the mid-1990's after a horrific mass shooting. Decent people ought to view Republicans who have sold their souls and the lives of their constituents to the gun manufacturers with disgust and need to make their disgust loudly and frequently known, especially at the ballot box. Conservative columnist David Frum calls out these hypocrites of the right in a piece in The Atlantic. Here are column highlights:

The attack on
members of Congress at baseball practice in Alexandria this morning is, by one
count, the 195th mass shooting of the year. Thankfully, this time it
appears that nobody was killed. The same can’t be said, alas, for the gun
battle in a Fresno home on June 6, or the workplace eruption
in Orlando on June 5, or the shooting
in St. Louis on June 2.

Mass-casualty
gun violence, like all forms of violence, has declined from its terrible peaks
of the early 1990s. Yet it remains prevalent in the United States on a scale
that staggers the rest of the civilized world. Earlier this month, we grieved
the terrible car and knife terrorist attack on London Bridge. In the United
Kingdom, jihadis
employ knives precisely because they cannot readily lay hands on guns.
The consequence is that committed ideological murderers, operating in teams,
inflict fewer fatalities on the rare occasions they strike than do American
casual killers every few days.

In only
one of all the completed and attempted Islamic terrorist atrocities
in the U.K. since 9/11 did the killers even carry a single gun: a 90-year-old
Dutch revolver so battered that they never tried to use it.

Yet despite the
predictable recurrence of these crimes, Americans have developed a strong taboo
against ever discussing or even thinking about them. When the killer strikes,
it is “too soon.” The next day, it is “too late”; we have all moved onto the
next topic. Then comes the next massacre, and it is “too soon” all over again.

Americans
accept periodic plagues as a visitation from the gods, about which nothing can
or should be done. The only permitted response is “thoughts and
prayers”—certainly never rational action to reduce casualties in future. Even
to open the discussion as to whether something might not be done violates the
taboos of decency: How dare you politicize this completely unpredictable
and uncontrollable event!

The
fact that such things do not happen anywhere else with anything approaching the
same frequency—that too is the work of some ineffable mystery. Who can say why
such things happen so seldom in Canada and Australia and Britain and Germany
and France, and so often in the United States? Who would be rude enough even to
wonder?

About
fires, apparently, it is permitted to use human reason. But not about firearms!
Against the much greater toll from those, the only remedy—the only approved
response—is to send “thoughts and prayers.”

[P]rayer alone
does not lift from human beings the duty to do what they have the power to do.
And that’s not my personal opinion. It’s also the opinion, emphatically
declared, of the God to whom believers in the Bible address their prayers. In
the stately words of the King James translation, Isaiah 1:15: And when ye
spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many
prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

In some ways, yesterday's attack was a case of Republicans reaping what they have sown. Sadly, I doubt that it will be enough to end the party's self-prostitution to the gun manufacturers who are the true power behind the NRA. The result will be more avoidable deaths.

For those of us who are of a certain age, the unfolding of the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's ultimate decision to resign from the presidency rather than face impeachment remain clearly in our memory. Now, with a new Washington Post story reporting that special prosecutor Robert Mueller has expanded to include whether or not Der Trumpenführer is guilty of obstruction of justice in connection with his efforts to quash the Russiagate investigation and the investigation of Michael Flynn., those memories are again springing back to mind. Some continue to try to denigrate those who see stark parallels. Needless to say, most of such naysayers have prostituted themselves to Trump and/or his base and, in my view, sold their souls for power or financial gain. The sad truth is that if one looks at Trump's history of bullying and shady dealings with Russian oligarchs, Mafia figures, and others, it would be difficult to conclude that trump would not have tried to derail an investigation likely to expose unsavory and likely criminal activities of Trump and his companies and associates. Here ar are excerpts from the Post piece:

The special
counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is
interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now
includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct
justice, officials said.

The move by special counselRobert S. Mueller IIIto investigate Trump’s conduct marks a
major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until
recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on
whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial
crimes among Trump associates, officials said.

Trump had
received private assurances from then-FBI Director James B. Comey starting in
January that he was not personally under investigation. Officials say that
changed shortly after Comey’s firing.

Five people briefed on the requests, speaking on the condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said
that Daniel Coats, the current director of national intelligence, Mike Rogers,
head of the National Security Agency, and Rogers’s recently departed deputy,
Richard Ledgett, agreed to be interviewed by Mueller’s investigators as early
as this week. The investigation has been cloaked in secrecy, and it is unclear
how many others have been questioned by the FBI.

The officials
said Coats, Rogers and Ledgett would appear voluntarily, though it remains
unclear whether they will describe in full their conversations with Trump and
other top officials or will be directed by the White House to invoke executive
privilege. It is doubtful that the White House could ultimately use executive
privilege to try to block them from speaking to Mueller’s investigators.
Experts point out that the Supreme Court ruled during the Watergate scandal
that officials cannot use privilege to withhold evidence in criminal
prosecutions.

The
obstruction-of-justice investigation of the president began daysafter Comey was fired on May 9, according to
people familiar with the matter. Mueller’s office has taken up that work, and
the preliminary interviews scheduled with intelligence officials indicate that
his team is actively pursuing potential witnesses inside and outside the
government.

The interviews
suggest that Mueller sees the question of attempted obstruction of justice as
more than just a “he said, he said” dispute between the president and the fired
FBI director, an official said.

Officials said
one of the exchanges of potential interest to Mueller took place on March 22,
less than a week after Coats was confirmed by the Senate to serve as the
nation’s top intelligence official.

Coats was attending a briefing at the White House with officials from
several other government agencies. When the briefing ended,as The Washington Post previously reported,
Trump asked everyone to leave the room except for Coats and CIA Director Mike
Pompeo.

Coats told associates that Trump had asked him whether Coats could
intervene with Comey to get the bureau to back off its focus on former national
security adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe, according to officials.

Mueller is overseeing a host of investigations involving people who are or
were in Trump’s orbit, people familiar with the probe said. The investigation
is examining possible contacts with Russian operatives as well as any
suspicious financial activity related to those individuals.

Investigators
will also look for any statements the president may have made publicly and
privately to people outside the government about his reasons for firing Comey
and his concerns about the Russia probe and other related investigations,
people familiar with the matter said.

To avoid any misunderstanding, I am utterly opposed to the use of violence to solve political differences. Thus, I abhor the shooting of Congressman Scalise this morning along with two members of the Capitol police and several Congressional staffers. The gunman, whom authorities have identified him as James T. Hodgkinson, 66,
from Belleville, Ill., a suburb of St. Louis, obviously should not have been allowed to possess an automatic rifle given his checkered history of violence, including misuse of firearms and violence against women. Nonetheless, Hodgkinson reportedly had acquired and owned the weapons involved legally. So who has championed unrestricted gun ownership? Congressional Republicans, of course. Today, they got a taste of the results of their self-prostitution to gun manufacturers. Despite this Republican drive to abolish common sense gun control laws - a hearing had been set for today to loosen restrictions on buying gun silencers - many on the right are blaming the shooting on too much anger among Democrats and the media. The hypocrisy is stunning for several reasons. First, Steve Scalise of all people has not standing to complain about fanning hatred. As I reported more than two years ago, Scalise has an ugly history of supporting white supremacist groups. And then there is the mushrooming of right wing hate that has been legitimized by Der Trumpenführer. For Republicans to whine about fanning hatred and gun violence is to ignore their role in fostering the atmosphere for violence and unlimited guns in the hands of those who should not have them. A piece in Think Progress looks at the GOP hypocrisy. Here are excerpts:

Republicans in Congress
and the White House have been attacking the media all year, but one House
member just tried to pin the blame for a mass shooting on the fourth estate.

Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI) told Fox News Wednesday
afternoon that “the media is complicit” in acts of violence like the mass
shooting targeting members of Congress “if they keep inciting, as opposed to
informing.”

Fox News anchor Melissa Francis
then played a clip from Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) who said some of his best
friends are Democrats and that the House passes a lot of bipartisan
legislation, “but it’s the major issues that lead to political discourse that
has in my opinion, led to such an uptick in just hateful, hateful rhetoric of
all sides, and I stand here today and say stop. We have to stop.”

Bergman was attempting to
pin the blame for the shooting on the media without offering much proof. The
media, as a group, has been abused and demonized by Bergman’s party.

Greg Gianforte, who will still join Bergman’s
caucus despite the fact he pled guilty tophysically
assaultinga journalist
the day before, is the latest and most direct example of politicians attacking
the media for doing their jobs.

Before andafterbecoming president, Donald Trump has
used rallies to deliver brutal attacks on the media. He has baselessly accused
the media ofpurposely
covering up extremism attacksit
didn’t want people to know about. He’sattacked
themas his
“opposition party,” and at rallies, directed theoverflowing
rage of his supporters at the media pen, causing some journalists to get direct
threats. Trump’s Twitter attacks targeting journalists like Megyn Kelly and
Katie Tur resulted in death threats. Hedefendedhis then-campaign manager, Corey
Lewandowski, when he was arrested for simple battery of a Breitbart reporter.
The NRA, of all groups, hasrecently
mimickedTrump’s rhetoric,
telling members its job is to give “the media the big fat black eye it so often
richly deserves.”

It is most ironic that these remarks were made to Fox News, a purveyor of lies, alt-right misinformation and fake news. As I said above, perhaps the Republican Party is reaping the fruits of what it has sown for many years now and since the beginning of the Trump campaign in particular. My best wishes to the staffers and police who were injured. Perhaps the staffers may want to reconsider who and what they are working for.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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